Hello Hello! I can’t believe we are only days away from Christmas. This month has flown by for us. McKenzie and Kasey are officially off of school until January. I’m so excited to spend all day with them, (check back with me next week and see if I still feel the same). This means I get a little hiatus from standing in the snow at the bus stop and BONUS, they are huge helps with the babies. Since December is coming to an end, I thought I would share with you some of our favorite Christmas traditions. Some we just recently started doing and others I have been doing long before I even had a family of my own. Here is a list of my favorites… and cute old pictures of the girls. 😉
ELF ON THE SHELF
We started this tradition a few years ago with the girls. This can be fun but also a huge hassle for parents. I know I’m not the only one who forgets to move the damn elf every night. It is usually midnight before Cody reminds me to move her, so my placement ideas aren’t very original. If you don’t know what ‘elf on the shelf’ is read about it here. McKenzie and Kasey named our elf Jazzy and they absolutely love her. It is so cute to read their notes they write her and their excitement when she responds back! I know this magic won’t last much longer, as they are 8 years old now. Some snot nosed kid at school will taint them soon enough. Hey, at least I have another 10 years or so with Harper and Mason. 🙂
NEW ORNAMENT EACH YEAR
My grandparents started buying me the collectible Barbie ornaments every year since 1991. I still have each and every one. I cherish them all. I think it is such a fun thing to do so I started buying an ornament every year for the kids. I don’t have a theme such as “Barbie” but I pick ones I think represent us in that moment. For the past few years, Jazzy has been the one to deliver them to the kids on her first night back home. This year, we went with simple initial ornaments to represent our new family members, Harper and Mason!
READING A CHRISTMAS BOOK EVERY NIGHT
I love collecting any type of book. So we have quite the collection of Christmas books. The girls and I love to read one book a night up until Christmas Eve, when we read The Night Before Christmas. Our favorites this year are The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Polar Express.
ADVENT CALENDAR
We have done this since McKenzie and Kasey were very little. We usually get the cheap ones from the grocery store that are filled with chocolate. They wake up every morning, after searching the house for our elf Jazzy of course, and eat their daily chocolate.
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE
This is my absolute FAVORITE Christmas movie. I make it a point to watch it every single Christmas Eve night after the kids are all in bed. I get my glass of wine and cry thinking about how blessed I am. That’s what this movie does to ya. 😉 I usually partake in this tradition alone because my husband can’t stay awake through the movie. Typical.
SANTA PRESENTS
A lot of people ask me why I start putting presents under our tree so early in the month. So, I thought I would talk about how we do our Santa presents. In our house, Santa only brings one or two gifts. Everything else my kids receive, they know is from us. I’m sure many people have different feelings about this but I think it’s important to limit Santa gifts so no one’s feelings are hurt. What I mean by this is, if Santa brings Johnny an Xbox, iPhone, etc. he is going to go to school and tell his friends. Well, Santa only brought little Sarah a stuffed animal. She is going to wonder why Santa wouldn’t bring her such extravagant gifts too. It ruins all the magic! Elves don’t make iPhones people.
We wrap the Santa gift in different paper or put in a “Santa sack”, so they know that is the gift he dropped off for them. I know everyone has their own way of doing things when it comes to Santa but I wanted to share what we do in our house. 🙂
VISIT SANTA
I have actually been slacking at doing an “official” Santa visit the past couple years, so I want to get back into it. I made it a priority to visit him this year since it is Mason and Harper’s first Christmas. I was SO hoping to get a great crying picture of the babies but of course that didn’t pan out. They seemed very uninterested as you can tell by the photo, haha!
I would love to hear what your family’s favorite traditions are! Leave them in the comments!
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